Malala Yousafzai poses with fellow students Bethany Lucas and Beatrice Kessedjian after collecting her A-level exam results at Edgbaston high school for girls in Birmingham.
Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters

Summary

And with that, we have come to the end of another A-level results day live blog. We hope you have found our coverage enjoyable, informative and edifying. Here’s a quick summary of the day’s main news points:

More boys got top grades than girls for first time in at least seven years. Boys gained 26.6% A and A*, compared with 26.1% for girls. Last year 25.7% of boys were awarded A and A*s – 0.3 points below girls.

Overall the pass rate in the A*-E grades fell 0.2 points to 97.9%, with a larger fall among the reformed subjects of 0.5 percentage points.

Performance in English subjects was down. The proportion of students achieving a C grade or better in English Literature, English Language, and English Language and Literature was almost 3 percentage points down on last year

Results day university acceptances were down 2%, but is still the second highest number recorded, according to Ucas. Overall, 416,310 students have been accepted at UK universities and colleges so far this year, of whom 201,270 are 18.

If you’re a student celebrating our commiserating over your grades, we hope you enjoy the rest of the day. And if you’re a teacher or education professional, we’ll see you again next year.

Last year (first year through new AS) I felt very well supported and that the exam board were ready for our questions ... This year I felt quite alone. There was no webinar before marking – we went straight into the standardisation. I find (personally) the standardisation scripts are very poorly annotated and I can’t always clearly see how a grade has been allocated to the content in a script.

I am fairly sure I over-mark and annotate scripts too heavily, but it helps me keep track during long scripts so I can be as consistent as possible. I feel the board are often too harsh on the upper end when answers are really sophisticated and should get top band, and often too generous on the lower and middle. Despite occasionally being out by a few marks on seeds, I give detailed feedback in my annotations on how I have arrived at a grade. I have been awarded an A grade as an examiner in previous years.

I enjoyed marking the new AS last year, and AS and A-level this year. It has forced me to improve my subject knowledge across plays and novels I don’t teach. It has made me very aware of the ... mark weighting of each one so that I can build it in to my own planning and teaching. I don’t particularly enjoy the online system which is glitchy at times, and staring at a screen is draining, but it is what it is. I am likely to continue marking regardless of the online system.

Pupils at Kensington Aldridge academy in west London, which lost five pupils in the fire that swept through Grenfell Tower, were today celebrating some “exceptional” AS results in what has been a very challenging year.

David Benson, head of Kensington Aldridge academy. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Many pupils who fled the fire on 14 June turned up to a hastily reorganised exam hall to sit an AS paper in maths. Today’s results put the school in the top 10% of UK schools for so-called “value added”, with students getting on average one grade higher than national expectations.

A statement from the school said 42% of all entries were As and Bs with exceptional performance in English, history, French, and religious studies. “These results would be important in any year, but coming so shortly after Grenfell they are particularly welcome.

“This remains a very difficult time for our community but our exam success shows that, even in very difficult circumstances, our students and staff are resilient and capable of achieving the very best.”

Head boy Kai Chappell said: “I’m really happy and proud of my results day – and there are lots of smiling faces around today which is really great to see.”

Headteacher hails pupils who took exams as Grenfell Tower burned

The Press Association’s Ryan Hooper reports that exam boards are working to ensure students who do not identify as either male or female do not feel left out when A-level results are published.

Currently, exam entries are broken down into just two categories - male and female candidates. But exam bosses said conversations are taking place with the charity Stonewall to address the growing need to reflect societal change.

Our reporter Amelia Hill has written the full story behind Malala Yousafzai’s A-level results and her award of a place to study PPE at Oxford this September.

Five years ago, the Taliban shot Malala Yousafzai in the head for advocating the right of girls to be educated. Now she has won a place at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, to study philosophy, politics and economics, or PPE.

The 20-year-old Nobel peace prize winner tweeted a screenshot of the confirmation and said: “So excited to go to Oxford!! Well done to all A-level students – the hardest year. Best wishes for life ahead!”

Alan Rusbridger, the principal of Lady Margaret Hall, whose alumni include one of her heroes, the former Pakistani president Benazir Bhutto, tweeted his welcome to Yousafzai.

Yousafzai comes from the Swat valley, an area in north-west Pakistan which has periodically banned girls from attending school. When the Taliban were driven out of the region in 2012, Yousafzai stepped up her campaign for girls to be allowed to go to school.

Her persistence and the growing prominence of her activism – she had blogged anonymously for BBC Urdu when she was just 11 in 2009 – prompted the Taliban to hold a meeting in 2012 at which they unanimously agreed to murder her.

Schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousafzai wins Oxford university place

'I was sleep deprived and slightly delirious, but absolutely overwhelmed'

Orli Vogt-Vincent

My AS year was a year overflowing with an overwhelming work load, staying in the library until ridiculous hours, and eventually resulted in stress-eating waffles at 4am the night before Results Day. Results day is possibly the most nerve wracking day of the entire calendar, and at 8am today, I was preparing myself to receive three AS grades, and one A-Level grade, as I had had to complete my German A-level in a year, due to sixth form funding cuts and a lack of intake.

The moment the email arrived in my inbox, I was sleep deprived and slightly delirious, but absolutely overwhelmed to find that the long hours and the effort had paid off, with 3 As in my AS Levels, and an A* in the German. It’s moments like this, where the stress of being a guinea pig for the new AS levels and just generally the anxiety of being a sixth form student in 2017 pays off.

Photograph: Orli

But then the results day etiquette comes into play – you don’t want to look nosy about other people’s results, but you don’t want to look like you don’t care. You’re gutted for the friends who didn’t get the grades they wanted, but you’re still really proud of the hard work finally paying off, proving to yourself that you’re capable. It shouldn’t have to take a set of exam results to validate us as students, but sadly that’s how it is. The stress doesn’t stop now, either – it’s straight on with personal statements, filling in forms for Ucas, and trying to figure out how on earth to get your life together today. But for now, I’m just going to enjoy the fact that making myself into a revision-obsessed, pyjamas-every-day, stay-at-home hermit really did pay off!

There are the kids who get superlative A-level results on their birthday and then there’s the twins who get superlative A-level results - so brace yourself for the twins who get superlative results on their birthday.

Beren and Chester Wilkinson from Gosford Hill School, a state secondary in Oxfordshire, managed just that today. Beren collecting three A*s and a place at Oxford University for his 18th birthday present. The pair were among the two-thirds of pupils at the school who gained A*s in maths.

Beren and Chester Wilkinson from Gosford Hill School, a state secondary in Oxfordshire, who both got As and A*s in their A-levels Photograph: HANDOUT

Cheers and tears on A-level results day 2017 – in pictures

Worst year for English results since 2012

The proportion of students achieving a C grade or better in combined English subjects (an umbrella term for English Literature, English Language, and English Language and Literature) was almost 3% down on last year, with 78% of students achieving A*-C grades in 2017 compared to 80.8% in 2016 – making this the worst year for English results since 2012.

Joe Foye, 18, from Chichester: ‘There is so much pressure on young people – but exams don’t define you’

Generally people in my school were fairly happy with their results today but some felt hard done by as they didn’t get what they were capable of – maybe due to the new system.

People were mainly relieved it’s over. It has taken its toll, the pressure on young people now is incredible.

I was very nervous going in to get my results as I hadn’t checked Ucas Track because if I hadn’t got what I wanted then I didn’t want to have to wait to find out why.

Photograph: Joe Foye

It was a little odd knowing that all the teachers knew my grades, but they were being positive so I wasn’t too worried. I was so stressed that when I first opened the envelope ... Once I realised I got what I wanted it was such a relief. I’d managed to achieve A*s in English literature, biology and law. It was difficult knowing some of my friends didn’t get their grades, especially because so much pressure is put on people, and it can feel as if these exams define you as an individual - which is definitely not the case.

The reforms to the new A-levels have been done badly. There’s no way around it. There was a complete lack of revision materials, especially past papers. While in some subjects like biology the old specification can be used, in English we had to make up our own questions and had no idea how we should be marking them.

The exam boards were very unhelpful, particularly with the English non-examined assessment (basically coursework). Our teachers were not allowed to provide any substantial feedback on our works, which seems to undermine the learning process, as there is no opportunity for development or improving.

This year, several subjects with large gender gaps in A*-C grades were reformed with the hope that the gap between boys and girls’ performance would narrow. And across the subjects looked at, the gender gap has narrowed - although not substantially across all subjects.

The biggest shift was in Physics, where the gap between boys and girls’ performance was narrowed by 2.5%. But the figures for Chemistry, while relatively marginal numbers, also are interesting - last year 0.2% more girls got A*-C grades than boys but that trend has now reversed with 0.2% more boys getting A*-C grades than girls.

Reforming Psychology does not seem to have had a big impact though - while the gap has narrowed by 1.5%, girls are still more than 10% likely to achieve an A*-C grade than boys taking the subject.

For a lot of A-level students, today is going to be a day of rapid plan changing as they try to find a university place to fit their grades. Our reporter Nadia Khomami has been at the clearing call centre at Coventry University to find out how it works.

The phones don’t stop ringing in a large office at one of Coventry University’s faculties. The hubbub of several conversations going on at once and number of TV screens showing live graphs creates a sense of urgency akin to a mini stock exchange.

It is from here and several other rooms identical to it, on A-level results day, that hundreds of university volunteers take calls from students as part of the clearing process.

“We’re taking calls from any candidates who want to find a course here,” says Alison Rowland, one of the university’s media and external affairs employees who is helping out on the clearing hotline.

“Today I’ve taken calls from candidates who meet our requirements and those who have just fallen short, and I’m just screening them and putting them through to the faculty so they can talk to someone who’s an expert in the subject they study.”

Coventry University’s pop up call centre for student clearing Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian

The way it works is that the volunteers take a student’s UCAS number and put it into a system so that their information comes up on the screen. “We take details of the course and if the student’s qualifications meet requirements we put them through, if they haven’t we offer them a different option - like a related course or a different campus,” Rowland says.

Sometimes the student meets the requirements but is unsure of the university, at which point the volunteer will list a number of unique selling points for the institution. The graphs track how many offers have been issued per hour.

Rachel Drinkwater, who normally works in IT, explains that volunteers have done several test runs prior to today. “We’ve had packs that give us scripts on how to deal with certain scenarios, we’ve had mock calls, done a bit of role play. It’s about getting familiar with the equipment and environment, because it’s a high pressure thing, we’re the first port of call, and how we represent the university is important.”

“It’s a high pressure thing”: Rachel Drinkwater said volunteers have done several test runs Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian

While the proportion of top A level grades rose this year, the number of university places allocated fell, with tens of thousands of places still available on clearing day. The UCAS university admissions body said on Wednesday 416,000 places had been confirmed so far - down 2% on last year.

This has created what has been dubbed a “buyers market”, where more options are available to students looking for university places.

Coventry - one of the group of former polytechnics that became a university in 1992 - is now one of the fastest-growing universities in the UK, with around 30,000 students. It was awarded a gold rating in this year’s first Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), which measures the quality of teaching at UK universities, and ranked 12th in the Guardian University Guide 2018, its highest-ever placing, making it the highest-ranked former polytechnic in the guide and putting it ahead of many Russell Group universities. So demand is high.

Liz Murphy, who is in charge of recruitment for the engineering faculty, said the university placed a lot of emphasis on “soft information gathering” for its clearing process. “We train our academics to listen to the student, to really ask them what they want and why they’re interested in a course. Sometimes they come through and they’re quite emotional. But it’s very much an advice and support moment, it’s about fit.

“I’ve worked in 10 other universities, and in my experience clearing has been a high-pressure sales environment, I’ve seen librarians and office staff say ‘right, you’ve got three Cs - you’re in’. That’s not what we do here, there’s an integrity to it.”

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett has some social media advice for A-level students today:

By all means celebrate – you’ve worked hard as a guinea pig in what amounts to an untested new exam system – but spare a thought for those who haven’t done as well as they hoped today. And also bear in mind that, though it might feel like it, life isn’t some linear track on to which you are now irrevocably attached, always moving forwards, onwards, upwards. There’ll be setbacks too. Of the friends I celebrated results day with 12 years ago, quite a few switched courses or dropped out. Some of us ended up in places we never thought we would, myself included, as I write this.

Looking at the most popular subjects, only 2.9% of students sitting English Literature achieved an A* this year. The highest grade also appeared elusive for students studying Psychology and Sociology, in which fewer than than 5% of entrants came away with an A*. Students taking Maths and art and design subjects fared much better, with more than one in six Maths students and one in eight art and design students seeing stars.

More boys get top grades than girls for first time in at least seven years

This year’s A-level results seem to suggest the tide could be starting to turn on the relative performance of boys and girls, Sally Weale, Richard Adams and Helena Bengtsson write.

After years’ of improving attainment by girls, early indications suggest boys seem finally to be starting to claw their way back and one of the key factors could be the reintroduction of end-of-year exams as part of the A-level reforms.

Traditionally end of course exams have been regarded as favourable to boys. When modular qualifications were introduced in 2002, girls’ performance began to climb - a trend which has continued.

Beranger Igiraneza, 18, celebrates at St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School in Bristol after winning a place to study medicine at Bristol University. Photograph: Rod Minchin/PA

Ahead of results day, the speculation has been that with the reintroduction of end-of-course exams, that could be reversed and the performance of boys may start to improve. And so they have. This year, for the first time in at least seven years, boys across the UK in all subjects outperformed girls in achieving A-A* grades, gaining 26.6% A and A*, compared with 26.1% for girls. Last year 25.7% of boys were awarded A and A*s – 0.3 points below girls.

In England specifically, boys coped better with the introduction of new, linear A-levels. While among b0th boys and girls, 24.3% were awarded either A or A*, the figures actually represent a significant decline for girls. The proportion of girls gaining A and above fell by 1.1 percentage points, compared to 2016, while the boys’ results held up far better.